Names were rarely changed intentionally at
Ellis Island. The majority of passengers were detailed on the ship's manifest before the vessel
left the port of departure. The purser or ship's officer was familiar with the name and ethnicity of
the many passengers who typically used the port, and the ship visited the port several times each year.
The captain and the medical officer swore affidavits to the accuracy of each group of lists, with 1
to 30 people in a group. On arrival in the port of
New York, the U. S. inspectors boarded each vessel and examined the manifest and tickets of
all classes of passengers. For those passengers taken to Ellis Island, immigration officials reviewed
the questions and answers with each person. The inspectors developed systems to prevent the misspelling
of names. To handle difficult names, interpreters were on hand who could understand more than 30 languages
from Albanian to Yiddish . . . A few immigrants requested a name change, as a new beginning. However,
historical records and individual testimonies indicate that most name changes occurred during the naturalization
process, not at Ellis Island.  from Ellis Island and the Making of America, by Jayare
Roberts, A.G., M.L.S., Genealogical Journal, Volume 23, Numbers 2 and 3, 1995, pp. 79-80.

If you have been unable to find your ancestors in census and other compiled indexes, the problem may
be misreading of the surnames rather than omissions.

Leap over the name spelling hang-up. Your ancestors may have always spelled or signed their name a
certain way, but you can bet that those who actually recorded their names  census takers, county
clerks and tax collectors  spelled it in various ways. How often have you had your own surname
misspelled? Think about it. To insist your name has always been spelled a particular way is to set yourself
up for defeat in genealogical research.

According to William Thorndale, in The Source, "An
enormous amount of genealogical research fails because people do not take simple precautions in searching
for spelling variants."

As a professional researcher, Thorndale emphasizes to his clients how important spelling variants
are. "I practically plead for these researchers to always check all forms of the first vowel when
searching census indexes," he said. But many of us ignore this wise advice. Thorndale also warns
about such spelling problems as:

Calligraphic look-alikes: Daniel and David

Phonetic equivalents: Sincere for St. Cyr

Translation equivalents: Carpenter for Zimmerman

Truncates: Fitzjurrell for Fitzgerald

Other spelling irregularities such as Cowper pronounced as Cooper

Some spelling variations include a different initial letter or the first vowel, or can be hidden by
an "h" as the second letter. If I only looked at "Go" in indices, I would miss all
the "Gho" spellings of Gormley. These quirks of spelling can throw surnames into unexpected
places in the indices. Occasionally, the problem is due to a computer's placement of names due to spacing.
That is, you often will find MacDonald and Mac Donald listed as different surnames. And, don't forget
to look for McDonald.

Surnames beginning with a vowel or an "H" should be sought under ALL vowels plus "H,"
at least until one becomes familiar with spelling variants that frequently occur of a particular surname.
Example: Autry, Awtrey, Autery, Hawtrey, and Ottery.

The "H" slips in and out of words in disconcerting fashion. Your Allard ancestor may appear
in an index (or a record) as Alhurd, so be especially alert about spellings that put an "h"
after plausible initial letters. The letter "R" is a semi-vowel within words and occasionally
appears in unexpected places with no particular pattern.

Many a researcher has missed their ancestor in records due to spelling oversights. Watch for letter
transpositions. These are common in computerized indices and compilations prepared from typed records.
When checking indexes in books, pay attention to how the book was compiled. Many genealogical books
contain several indexes in a single volume, often arranged by the time period of the particular records
involved. If you only check the index at the back of a book, you may miss your ancestors.

Many of us have surnames that differ somewhat from the ones our immigrant ancestors brought to America.
In many cases, it is just a slight spelling variation of the original name  not a name change.
In others, the name we use may be an anglicized version, and in still others, descendants have wound
up with a completely different surname. Most North American researchers discover their surname has variant
spellings or has been changed in some way. This could have occurred for such reasons as:

Necessity. Most typewriters and typesetting equipment used by North Americans could not cope
with the diacritical markings used above or below certain letters found in several European languages,
or the logographs seen in Chinese. Similarly, names written originally in Hebrew, Cyrillic, Arabic
and a number of other alphabets had to be transliterated into the ones used in this the U.S. or Canada,
for example.

Inability to spell or carelessness. Many immigrants could not spell (in English) her or his
name. So when they gave their name to county clerks, enumerators, etc., that person wrote the name
as it sounded to him.

Difficulty in pronouncing or spelling a name. Some names, particularly Polish, are difficult
for most Americans and Canadians to spell or pronounce. A Polish immigrant named Dzeckaeiar may have
simplified the name to Decker.

Desire to break with the past. North America, Australia and other localities were a new beginning
for many of our ancestors, and some had no desire to retain anything, including their name, that reminded
them of an unhappy past in the old country.

Disagreement with relatives. Some family members changed their names completely, or the spelling
slightly, to avoid being associated with a disliked relative or neighbor with the same name. Many
family traditions claim such instances to explain how the particular spelling of their surname came
in existence. However, such stories are not always accurate.

Dislike of the original name. Many Jewish people, in particular, disliked the names that
may have been forced on them in the old country.

Fear of bad treatment. Some of our immigrant ancestors had fled from countries where they
were mistreated, and thought a change of name might avert further problems in the new country. During
World War I, many German-Americans changed or altered their names because they feared discrimination
and maltreatment.

Getting rid of a semantic objection. Some names, such as Lipschitz or Gelbfisch, seemed humorous
to Americans, and such names were often changed.

Desire for material success. Second- or third-generation Americans sometimes changed their
names because they felt a "wrong" name might prevent them from becoming successful or getting
a particular job.

Whatever the reasons for a name change, the genealogist must learn to look for all possible spellings
and transliterations.

Basically, most Western surnames come from one of four types:

Patronymics  The father's given name with "son" or an "s" added to it.

Place Names  Words that identified where a person lived or came from.

Occupational Names  What a person did for a living. Many of these are based upon medieval
occupations.

Nicknames  Names based on a person's characteristics, either personality or appearance. A
small percentage of us have names derived from nicknames of ancestors who lived many centuries ago.

Under what other spellings might your ancestors be hiding in the records?

Asian names generally do not follow the standard Western patterns. For example, Chinese names are
almost always one-syllable words that may be taken after the name of an old ruling family. In Japan,
names were created more recently out of two unrelated, but often poetic words. Jewish names sometimes
are made up acronyms  abbreviations that combine a number of words.

Beware of the fallacy of a practice common in many families  that of assuming that if the name
is not spelled in a certain way it cannot belong to the same family. Don't pass over important genealogical
records because the name happens to be spelled with an a rather than ane,with
an ie rather than a y, or with one n rather than with two.

Be extremely careful in use of indexes. Consider every possible spelling of the name sought. Local
dialects and foreign accents often make a significant difference. Even the pronunciation, and hence
the spelling, of an English-derived name may be quite different in Massachusetts than it is in Alabama,
Quebec, Sydney, or Liverpool.

Not MineIt's Not Spelled Rite

A professional genealogist relates the story of how she worked on a line for a client for more than
20 hours and found the client's father as a child in the 1920 census, and then located the grandparents
in the passenger lists. Additionally, the researcher was able to extend the pedigree back another four
generations to the middle 1800s in Italy.

Excited to have such good news to share, the professional genealogist quickly typed up the report
and mailed it to the client. Days went by and then the phone rang. It was the client who told the researcher:

"You've got the wrong family."

And what was the client's reason for thinking this? Two of the children in the 1920 census were recorded
with nicknames instead of with their given names.

This is a common scenario in the genealogical world. Verbal arguments sometimes erupt over the spelling
of a surname. People will insist that their surname has always been spelled a particular way 
even when the records indicate otherwise. They foolishly will refuse to accept a lineage with a different
spelling and will overlook their ancestors in records because of this surname spelling hang-up.

Toss out everything Miss Jones taught you in elementary school about surname spelling. It doesn't
matter in genealogy. In addition to the fact that earlier generations, prior to the late 19th century,
really didn't worry as much about spelling, transcribers did not always read a record accurately. Whenever
you are working with indexes, it is important to look up any possible variant spelling that you can
think of. You might even want to get wacky with a pen. Take a piece of paper and start writing the surname
in script. See how messy or different you can make it and then see what letters it brings to mind. Chances
are you are likely to find a few of those "variants" in indexes.

Finally, to give you an idea of how little spelling counts, a land deed for one ancestor has his name
spelled three different ways. In his will, the man's name is spelled four ways. One surname has been
found spelled 24 different ways in the same locality, and listed under three different letters of the
alphabet  A, E and I. Would you think to look for a Shoemaker family under "J"? That's
how some wound up in the 1900 Soundex, the S being read as "Jh."

Miscellaneous quotations from Correct Mispronunciations of Some South Carolina Names*

Buyck BIKE. Some are tempted to pronounce two syllables, BUE-ik, like the car, but in South Carolina
the family name is just one, BIKE. (Neuffer, p. 23)

Horry OH-REE. The northern coastal county of Horry is named for Revolutionary Colonel Peter Horry
. . . stories evidence the too-often incorrect pronunciation of Horry . . . story is of Northern visitors.
With their guidebook for a walking tour of Charleston, they were looking in vain for Colonel Horry's
house. Seeing an old nurse walking her little aristocratic charges along the Battery, the lead visitor
sought assistance: "Pardon, could you tell us where the HOH-ri House is?" Quick was the old
nurse's indignant reply: "Don't you dare talk dat way in front of dese chillun. Dis is a `spectable
neighborhood. What you looking fah is over on Beresford Street." The Big Brick for years was the
notorious house of prostitution on Beresford Street. . . (Sam Stoney, the Mr. Charleston of South Carolina
historians, is our source for this Horry story.) (Neuffer, p.85)

Ribaut ree-Boe, ree-BAW, ree-BOTE. Ribaut Road, one of the main streets of lowcountry Beaufort, is
named for the early Huguenot leader Jean Ribaut. In 1562 he established his short-lived colony Charlesfort
on Parris Island in Port Royal Sound. Although ree-BAW is heard fairly often, when Kershaw Tom Peach
went calling on his intended May Dowling in Beaufort, he got puzzled looks when he asked the location
of ree-BAW Road; finally one of the older native folks clarified, "Some of the young ones just
call it ree-BOAT, but most of us still prefer Ree-BOE." (Neuffer, p. 147)

Xulu Hoo-Loo (oo as in hoop). This word is used a couple of times in the narratives of the early Spanish
explorers and may be merely a variant of Xuala. However, it is taken to mean the Cherokee Territory,
which encompassed the southern Appalachians, extending nearly as far south as present-day Atlanta in
Georgia and extended as far east as present-day Cheraw in South Carolina. For some reason historians,
if they acknowledge the term at all, tend to pronounce it Hoo-Loo, although Shoo-Loo or Zoo-Loo may
be closer to what the inhabitants of the region were actually saying to those first European explorers.
(Neuffer, p. 181).

* Neuffer, Claude and Irene. Correct Mispronunciations of Some South Carolina Names. Columbia,
SC: University of South Carolina, 1983.

Surname Spellings and Legalities

Idem Sonans.**This means that in order to establish legal proof of relationship from documentary evidence it
is not necessary for the name to be spelled absolutely accurately if, as spelled, it conveys to the
ear, when pronounced in the accepted ways, a sound practically identical to the correctly spelled name
as properly pronounced.